This morning I took some time to start my week off in reflection – evaluating where i’m at in these areas of my life, knowing that they are all intertwined.
We are holistic beings. One area of our lives affects the other. We cannot separate the physical from the spiritual or vice versa.
“What we should be clear about, though, is that the condition of our bodies makes a difference in the capacity of our minds to think clearly and of our souls to see the beauty of hope-giving truth.” – John Piper
“Does someone hold the view that as long as you are a Christian it does not matter what the condition of your body is?… There are certain physical ailments which tend to promote depression. You cannot isolate the spiritual form the physical for we are body, mind and spirit. The greatest and the best Christians when they are physically weak are more prone to attack of spiritual depression than at any other time and there are great illustrations of this in the scriptures.” – Martin Lloyd-Jones, preacher at Westminster Chapel in London in the mid-twentieth century, Spiritual Depression
“The point is that the relationship between the soul and the brain is beyond human comprehension and should be handled with the greatest care and with profound attention to the moral and spiritual realities of human personhood that may exert as much influence on the brain or vice versa.” – John Piper, When I Don’t Desire God, pg. 213
If we are simply rushing through our lives without reflection, then we are simply reacting to life instead of living it head on! Clay and I were watching Designated Survivor last night and in it the prior President was telling Kiefer Sutherland’s character – the current President – that he was reacting to all that was going on the country and not actually leading it in a direction.
And so it is with our lives…
We were made as holistic beings by God, and we find our wholeness in and through Him – as we allow Him to permeate all aspects of our lives. Sometimes we need to stop and reflect – see where we are, where we are heading – or want to head, and most importantly where God is trying to direct us. my prayer this morning is this:
Lord, what would you have for me in these areas? I know where I want to go in certain aspects of my life, but I need You to show me how to get there. I lift up open hands to you, offering all these gifts back to you – and also the hard places, the struggles, the aches and pains both physical and spiritual. God, where do You want me to go?
James 4:15 tells us that instead of planning out our lives {when we really have no idea what the future will bring}, we should instead say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” Oh, that I would have the kind of faith to preface my requests to the Lord with “if it is Your will.” Take physical pain for example: of course we all want to be healed from physical pain. But who knows the beauty that God is planting, water, and growing from our times in the ashes of the trenches. He’s so good like that.
Thanks be to God that we have Him to guide our lives that are but “a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14).
Would we live into that knowledge and allow it to put into perspective all our dreams and hopes and fears and trials as we head into a new week, a new month, a new start with a fresh faith.
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
“The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace.” – Psalm 29:11
